The Bloody Triangle

by Victor Kamenir

  A significant factor influencing Stalin’s disbelief of Germany’s offensive intensions was understanding that while the Soviet military was not at its peak performance, it was numerically and qualitatively stronger than German, quantity having a quality of its own. Stalin was thinking in absolute terms, matching gun against gun, tank against tank, and battalion against battalion. He was well aware that his armored force of nearly 24,000 tanks dwarfed the German tank force of roughly 4,500. The heaviest German tank was a medium Pz IV, completely outclassed by new Soviet medium T-34 and heavy KV-1 tanks. The Soviet air force and navy similarly outnumbered their German counterparts.

  Nor did Stalin believe that Hitler would be blind enough to attack the Soviet Union while still engaged against the British in the West. As demonstrated in World War I, Germany simply did not have economic resources or population to fight a war on two fronts. Another huge discrepancy in correlation of forces was the sheer size of the Soviet Union when compared to Germany. Moreover, Stalin was fully aware of what it meant to fight in the vastness of Russian time and space, while German planners were constricted by their experiences in the tight confines of central Europe.

  Striving to buy time, in a move that shocked Western governments, the Soviet Union signed a ten-year nonaggression pact with Nazi Germany on August 24, 1939. “War would pass us by a little longer,” Stalin stated to those of his closest circle.14

  One of the key points of this pact was the agreement by both parties to maintain neutrality if one of the signatories became engaged in war against a third party. In a parallel agreement several days before, on August 19, both countries signed a seven-year trade agreement in which Germany paid the Soviet Union in hard currency for raw materials much needed by Germany—grain, timber, oil, and some minerals essential for war industry.

  In a secret protocol of the treaty, Germany and the Soviet Union divided Eastern Europe into two spheres of influence. Consequences of this agreement continued to influence the course of European affairs well after the fall of Germany in 1945 and the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991.

  Opportunity to act upon this secret protocol promptly presented itself. On September 1, 1939, merely a week after signing the treaty, Nazi Germany unleashed World War II by invading Poland. While the main portion of the Polish army was defeated in a two-week campaign, giving rise to the term “blitzkrieg,” the Polish government still nursed hopes of holding out until France and England intervened. Its hopes were crushed on September 17, when the Soviet Union crossed the Polish borders in the east, mortally stabbing Poland in the back. The fact that Poland and the Soviet Union signed their own nonaggression treaty in 1932 did not carry much weight with Stalin. Hitler would negate the German-Soviet nonaggression pact in a similar off-hand manner just two short years later. In addition to reaching an agreement with the Germans, the USSR signed a neutrality pact with Japan on April 13, somewhat securing the Siberian back door. In a special article of this pact, like the one between Russia and Germany, it was agreed upon that if a third party would attack one of the two signatories, the other one would remain neutral in the war.

  As the result of its participation in the 1939 campaign, the Soviet Union acquired approximately 155,000 square miles of territory with a population of over 13 million. This was more of re-acquisition, rather than acquisition. In March 1918 the nascent Soviet state signed a humiliating Treaty of Brest-Litovsk under which it ceded large portions of now-defunct Russian Empire, namely western portions of Ukraine and Belorussia, the Baltic states, and Finland, plus some other minor territories in the Caucasus. After carving up Poland in concert with Germany in 1939, the Soviet borders were returned farther west, a fact that would play a significant role in the early stages of upcoming Soviet-German struggle in 1941.

  Now, as the clock inexorably inched closer to fateful June 22, Soviet forces deployed along these new western borders began sounding alarms in increasing frequency and urgency. The most evident of these were over-flights by German reconnaissance aircraft over Soviet territory. Since late 1930s, a Luftwaffe formation called Special Purposes Squadron (or Squadron Rowehl after its founder Colonel Theodor Rowehl) had been flying high-altitude reconnaissance missions over Europe. Soviet Union was one of the countries on which it routinely spied. However, as the plans for Operation Barbarossa proceeded ahead, increasing demands for military intelligence about the Soviet Union caused Colonel Rowehl to give top priority to activating directed against the Soviet Union.

  In January of 1941, Rowehl added another, fourth, squadron to his unit, which by now expanded into a full air wing. This fourth squadron was tasked solely with collecting information on Soviet Union. According to David Kahn: “Altogether, [Rowehl’s] craft violated Soviet air space several hundred times between October 1939 and the German invasion of Russia.”15

  On two occasions when German aircraft were forced to land in the Soviet territory due to technical difficulties, evidence of German intelligence-gathering was irrefutable. On both of these occasions, a camera in working order was found in the wreckage of a German plane. Developed film clearly showed Soviet military installations and road junctions photographed from the air. Despite clear indications of intelligence-gathering activities by German aircraft, numerous requests by Soviet air defense units to open fire were invariably met with instructions to hold their fire so as not to provoke Germans into escalating the issue into a wider conflict.

  Sometimes German attempts to cover up intelligence-gathering activities were so porous as to be insulting to the Soviets. Still, Stalin did everything possible to appease Hitler. In the spring of 1941, Germany requested and received permission to search the area on the Soviet side of the border for graves and remains of German servicemen fallen during World War I and the recent campaign against Poland in 1939. While Soviet commanders along the border gnashed their teeth in frustration, the Germans made the most of their opportunity to conduct ground reconnaissance.

  When the Soviet border moved west in 1939, a somewhat chaotic situation existed for a time along the new frontier. The new border was easily crossed by people moving back and forth across the border, especially by local residents. Along with smuggling, information trade on a local level flourished. These porous borders, aided by largely difficult thickly wooded terrain, were favorable to penetration by spies and intelligence agents from both sides. Germany, especially, benefited from services of the underground Ukrainian organization, the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalist (OUN, the Organizatsiya Ukrainskikh Natsionalistov) who viewed the Germans as the lesser evil compared to the Soviets. Multiple local sympathizers passed the information directly to Germans or through the OUN. Lieutenant Fedor Arkhipenko, a fighter pilot stationed near Kovel, voiced his suspicious of the locals: “There were many civilians from the neighboring villages employed in building the landing strip, and there were many spies infiltrated among them, who observed the airfield.”16

  Once the Soviet Union joined the western Ukraine to the rest of the country, it began brutally asserting its rule over this newly acquired territory. Tens of thousands people were arrested and jailed locally or transported to concentration camps and jails deeper within the Soviet Union. At this point, executions, while common enough, did not attain the level they would reach immediately after German invasion.

  This brutal treatment at the hands of their new Soviet masters created widespread discontent among the Western Ukrainian population. While a majority were sufficiently cowed into sullen inactivity, a small core of Ukrainian militant patriots rallied around the OUN. These men and women provided the Germans with a valuable network of agents reporting on Red Army’s dispositions and strengths. Lieutenant Arkhipenko writes:

  I recall that before the war in those areas, often the officers from other units, who were outside the military garrisons, would disappear. . . . In the spring of 1941, under commissar’s orders I had to make a presentation dedicated to the Red Army Day in one of the villages near Kovel. I arrived at the village, intr
oduced myself to the kolkhoz chairman and went to the community center, where many people gathered. I delivered my presentation. During the presentation, several shots were heard outside. It was possible that the villagers, unhappy with the Soviet authority (kolhozes) decided to test, represented by me, the moral fortitude of the Red Army. . . . The atmosphere was quite tense, and a thought occurred to me that it would be prudent to get out of there while I was still alive. Even though I was invited to spend the night there, I insisted on leaving and set off for Kovel in a horse cart, holding a pistol inside my coat all the way there, while appearing nonchalant.17

  Several other Soviet memoirists record instances when wives of Red Army officers shopping or running errands in western Ukrainian towns were verbally accosted by local residents. The common thread of whispered threats was: “Just wait till Germans get here. They’ll show you!” It was the atmosphere of not whether the war with Germany will happen, but when will it happen.

  The feeling of oncoming war ran prevalent among the Red Army personnel as well. Colonel Ivan K. Bagramyan was transferred in December 1940 from Moscow to the headquarters of Kiev Special Military District to take over Operations Section of Headquarters of Kiev Special Military District. Since this reassignment took place in the middle of a school year, his wife and two daughters remained in Moscow, allowing the girls to finish off their school year before moving to Ukraine in the summer of 1941.

  Knowing that Bagramyan was in Kiev alone, his direct supervisor, Maj. Gen. Maxim A. Purkayev invited Bagramyan to his apartment to ring in the new year. Shortly before being assigned to his current position, General Purkayev served as a military attaché in Germany. This posting gave Purkayev an insight into the situation in Germany and its military capabilities, giving him ample cause for concern.

  Apparently, Purkayev’s wife, Antonia, shared some of her husband’s apprehensions, for she raised a toast: “Especially, that there would be no war!” Despite the cheerful occasion for their dinner, table conversation was serious. Purkayev related to Bagramyan that major issues were being looked at during a recent high-level military conference in Moscow:

  Some issues are closely scrutinized. Stalin himself is interested in the progress of the conference. Each meeting is attended by some member of Politburo. . . . It appears that the Central Committee [of Politburo] is taking into account the complexity of the international situation and growing threat from the fascist Germany. This explains increased attention to the defensive potential of [our] country. And without doubt, there will be major changes in our army life.18

  In the first week of 1941, commander of Kiev Special Military District, Georgiy Zhukov, returned to Kiev from Moscow’s conference. Within days of his return, Zhukov called together a meeting that included senior command personnel of the military district, army commanders along with their members of military councils and chiefs of staffs, the same representative groups from corps and divisions, commanders and chiefs of staff of fortified districts, and commandants of military schools.

  Zhukov opened the proceedings with statement: “The threat of war more and more hanging over our Motherland.” He was no longer hiding the fact that Germany was to be considered a potential enemy; therefore, the main emphasis of the five-day meeting was dedicated to reviewing and updating the district’s plans for defending the border in the near future. Zhukov particularly stressed the fact that these plans must be made counting on only the resources at hand:

  Some comrades forget that any, even the most brave, plans must be based on realistic capabilities. While planning measures in case of war, we could not base them on what our army will have in the future. What if the war starts now? We must be realistic and make plans based on means and abilities which we possess today [emphasis added].19

  At the end of the conference, Zhukov officially announced shuffling of command personnel: General Sovetnikov, who was commanding the Fifth Army, was appointed as District’s deputy commander in charge of fortified districts. He was replaced by Maj. Gen. M. Potapov, commander of the IV Mechanized Corps. In his turn, Potapov was replaced by Maj. Gen. A. A. Vlasov, who stepped up from command of the 99th Rifle Division. As for himself, shortly after this conference, Zhukov departed for Moscow to take over the General Staff, with Zhukov’s replacement, Col. Gen. M. Kirponos, arriving shortly.

  Friction between Purkayev, Bagramyan, and Kirponos began within several days of latter’s arrival. After reviewing plans for covering the border, Kirponos disagreed with them. He was convinced that there would be some warning, at least several days, before the hostilities begin. Therefore, he thought that too many troops were placed too close to the border. He wanted to have at least one division per army to be held back as a mobile reserve. Purkayev offered a counter that if Germans attack without warning, they will overcome the weak defending units, and there will be no opportunity to organize the defense. Kirponos’ counter was purely rhetoric: “We must not allow the enemy to surprise us. What do we have intelligence for?”20

  The intelligence services, both NKVD and military GRU, had indeed been sounding warnings. Since the beginning of January 1941, Soviet intelligence began noticing significant movement of German forces towards the western Soviet border. Everything that Gen. F. I. Golikov, chief of intelligence directorate of the General Staff, would report to Timoshenko and Zhukov, they would in turn report to Stalin:

  However, I do not know what intelligence information Gen. F. I. Golikov was reporting to J. V. Stalin, bypassing the [Minister] of Defense and Chief of General Staff, and such reports were frequent.

  I can only say: J. V. Stalin knew significantly more than the military leadership. But even from what he was reported by the military intelligence sources, he could see undeniable increase of the threat of war, but he did not do this, and he, overestimating his abilities, continued farther on the false trail [emphasis added].21

  In May, People’s Defense Commissar M. Timoshenko sent a directive to military districts, outlining their responsibilities in case of a sudden attack by the Germans. Since the official plans for covering the border were being worked on, Timoshenko sent out a special directive to increase readiness of western border districts. In accordance with the plan, the rifle corps were to form the first echelon, mechanized corps, the second echelon. In the Kiev Special Military District, additional defensive positions were to be built thirty to thirty-five kilometers east of the border. The second echelon, occupied by five rifle and four mechanized corps, awaited movement orders from General Staff. A district’s command post was also ordered built in Tarnopol.

  After the German invasion of Yugoslavia on March 27, senior commanders of covering armies were called for a working conference to Kiev to work out a new defensive plan that called for more troops directly on the border to repel the German first strike. This work was conducted in such secrecy that only generals and officers directly involved in planning could have access to the materials. They had to write and type everything personally. Bagramyan ruefully remembered that he had to brush up on his half-forgotten skills with a typewriter.

  At approximately the same time, Timoshenko and Zhukov submitted a joint request to Stalin to call up round-out personnel to bring rifle divisions to full strength. Initially, Stalin denied this request on the grounds that such call up could be interpreted by Germans, intentionally or not, as mobilization and cause for war. In the end of March, however, Stalin relented and authorized a call up of five hundred thousand men earmarked for border districts in an attempt to bring each rifle division to at least eight thousand men. Several days later, an additional call up of three hundred thousand men was authorized. Training periods for them were to last from May to October. This allowed a majority of first-line rifle divisions to be brought up to eight to nine thousand men.22

  On April 26 they received orders to form five antitank artillery brigades, but only the 1st Brigade under Maj. Gen. Konstantin Moskalenko was formed by the start of hostilities. Additionally, the I Airborne Corps was being fo
rmed from the 204th Airborne Brigade, already assigned to the district, plus the 211th Airborne Brigade, which was being transferred from Far East. Additional manpower for the airborne corps came from the excess enlisted men left over after four rifle divisions of the Twelfth Army were reorganized into mountain-infantry divisions.

  In the second half of May, command of Kiev Special Military District received instructions from Moscow informing them of arrival of the XXXIV Rifle Corps from the North-Caucasus Military District, consisting of four rifle and one mountain infantry division. The first trains bearing this unit were expected on May 20. On May 25, further order announced relocation of the XXXI Rifle Corps from the Far East. According to Bagramyan:

  At the end of May, significant portion of officers from district’s headquarters were occupied in meeting and housing the arriving units. Trains came in one after another. The Operations Section turned into a dispatcher section, gathering all information about movement and condition of units. Divisions were arriving combat capable, even though their commanders complained about not having enough mid-level officers and lack of combat vehicles, transportation, and communication means.23

  Taking these factors into consideration, during March and April the General Staff was feverishly working on updating their defense plans to reflect German movements. Based on these updated plans, Timoshenko and Zhukov reported to Stalin that there were not sufficient Soviet forces in the western districts and requested urgent mobilization of several armies from internal districts and begin moving them west. “After long and quite pointed conversation, J. V. Stalin [emphasis added] permitted two armies to be moved west under the utmost secrecy and under guise of training.”24 At the same time, NKVD received Stalin’s instructions to step up construction of airfield networks; however, the workforce was permitted to be employed on these works only after finishing construction of the fortified districts.